


The Coquette Painting

by BrandonStrayne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Arson, Auror Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Partners, Aurors, Facebook: The Pen15 is Mightier, Flirting, M/M, Pining, Urban Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrandonStrayne/pseuds/BrandonStrayne
Summary: When a news story arises in the Muggle tabloids about a mysterious painting that seemed to magically survive an intense fire, Harry and Draco infiltrate a London police station to get to the bottom of it.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36
Collections: Pen15 Challenge 12: A Grain of Truth





	The Coquette Painting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Pen15 is Mightier A Grain of Truth Bimonthly Challenge. This was inspired by the urban legend of the curse of the [Crying Boy Paintings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crying_Boy).
> 
> I would like to thank [OllieMaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/olliemaye), [Drarryismymuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drarryismymuse) and [Keep_Calm_and_Expecto_Patronum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keep_calm_and_expecto_patronum), who once again came to my rescue and beta'd this for me.

Harry and his partner Apparated into the alley behind the Muggle police station and were greeted almost immediately by a clattering noise as a stray cat that had been sitting on top of a dumpster scrambled away at their appearance and knocked over one of the recycling bins. Thinking fast, his partner pushed Harry back against the rough brick wall of the building and buried his face into Harry’s neck only moments before a door off to their left opened and a uniformed police officer stuck his head out to investigate the commotion.

“Oi! You two! This isn’t a hotel. Go find somewhere more private for that.”

Draco pulled his face away from Harry’s neck and Harry was both relieved and disappointed at the loss of Draco’s warm breaths against his skin. Fortunately, Draco was distracted enough that he didn’t seem to notice Harry’s reaction to their sudden proximity.

“Last time I checked, snogging in public wasn’t a crime!” Draco shot back, but he still pulled away from Harry and took his hand, leading him down towards the far end of the alley and away from the back entrance of the police station.

“What the hell was that?” Harry asked, looking back to see the policeman scrutinising them as they retreated away from him, before disappearing back into the building. Harry breathed a sigh of relief and he and Draco stopped walking a few metres before they reached the sidewalk.

“I know that my skin is very soft—I use a moisturising hand lotion that my mother sends me from France—but I’m going to need my hand back.” Harry’s brows drew together in confusion at Draco’s words, his eyes dancing with amusement until Harry looked down to see that he was still grasping Draco’s hand, their fingers interlaced.

He let go of Draco’s hand and clenched and unclenched his hand a few times, trying to chase away the feel of Draco’s cool palm against his own. His ‘tiny crush’ on his partner was starting to become a real problem.

Clearing his throat, Harry forced out a dismissive laugh. “Whatever, Draco. Now answer my question: What was that back there?”

Draco studied him for a few moments and Harry was convinced that Draco could read him like a book, but eventually, he shrugged at Harry and smirked. “It was the first thing that came to my mind. There aren’t a lot of believable reasons that two men would voluntarily hang out in a dark alley beside a dumpster. I figured an undeniable moment of passion was better than a physical altercation. Less chance of us being detained by the Muggle Aurors.”

“Policemen, Draco. They’re called policemen, not Aurors,” Harry corrected Draco for what must have been the hundredth time. He was convinced that Draco knew the correct word, but he just refused to use it because he liked getting a rise out of Harry.

Draco waved his hand dismissively as if shooing away Harry’s words as he peeked his head out from the alley to inspect the front door of the police station. “What’s your plan for getting us in there, Potter?”

Draco was still scoping out the front entrance as Harry pulled out his wand and cast a silent Transfiguration spell on his clothes, turning them into a passable facsimile of a police officer’s uniform. At Harry’s silence, Draco turned back to him and Harry couldn’t help but grin at the double-take that Draco did at Harry’s change of attire.

Draco’s eyes darted down Harry’s frame and a look of intrigue flitted across his face for a flash before he schooled his features into his usual sassy grin. Harry was dying to prod at Draco and get to the bottom of what that look might mean, but that would have to wait until later since they were on the job right now. Halloween was right around the corner though … perhaps Harry would have to dress up as a policeman this year and see if he could get a repeat of that reaction out of Draco.

Filing that thought away for later, Harry grinned and pulled his Auror badge out of his pocket, studying Draco’s reaction as he transfigured the badge into a set of silver handcuffs. Draco shot him an incredulous look, his right eyebrow spiking up in that way that Harry found so endearing.

“You can’t be serious, Potter,” Draco stated flatly.

Harry grinned at him as he pushed one of the clasps around and into the open position, holding it out towards Draco and gesturing towards his wrist. “Do you have any better ideas? The thing least likely to draw attention in a police station is a police officer bringing in a criminal. It’s not like we can just walk in there and flash our Auror badges.”

Draco seemed to be thinking for a moment, but he apparently couldn’t come up with a better plan. “So why is it that  _ I’m _ the one that should don the handcuffs? Why don’t I put on the…” Draco seemed to get distracted for a few moments as his gaze travelled down Harry’s body again before he realised what he was doing and gestured randomly at Harry, “uniform and I can bring  _ you _ in?”

Harry couldn’t fight down the grin that lit up his face at Draco’s reaction to the police uniform. If Harry had known that it would be this easy to get a rise out of Draco, he would have tried this approach months ago. It was really a shame that there weren’t more reasons to wear costumes … maybe he should plan a fancy dress party.

“If you think that you know enough about Muggle police procedures to talk us out of a sticky situation with someone asking questions, then by all means, I’ll wear the cuffs,” Harry said smugly.

Draco’s mouth quirked up in a sexy smirk and Harry felt a rush of heat under his collar at what he knew was coming.

“You seem a little keen there, Potter,” Draco practically purred and, as expected, Harry felt his cheeks flush at the innuendo. Harry could only hope that Draco never found out just how close he was to the truth.

Harry tried to ignore the flare of embarrassment and he addressed his partner as if he hadn’t spoken, “So? Which of us is going to wear the handcuffs?” Harry held the cuffs up, dangling from his finger for Draco to take.

Rather than take the proffered cuffs, Draco sighed and spun around, holding his wrists together behind him. Harry stepped forward and fastened one of the cuffs around Draco’s wrists. He sucked in a quick breath when Draco shifted in front of him and his hand grazed the front of Harry’s trousers.

“Not so tight!” Draco protested as Harry shifted a small fraction back, afraid what another inadvertent touch like that might result in.

“It’s not even that tight,” Harry said. He’d been very careful to leave the cuffs on the loosest setting.

“This is why I prefer silk ties,” Draco said in a low, sensual voice, one shining grey eye just barely visible under a curtain of white-blond hair as he looked back over his shoulder at Harry.

Harry was sure that Draco was trying to get a reaction out of him. More and more lately, his partner had been making these sly comments and subtle innuendoes. Draco had never exactly been a shrinking wallflower though, and ever since they had buried the hatchet and built up a friendship after being assigned as Auror partners, Draco had regularly regaled Harry on many of the sordid details of his dating life.

It had never really bothered Harry before, and he’d always assumed that at least half of the stories that Draco told were total crap anyway—no man would risk using an  _ Engorgio _ in such a sensitive area—but ever since he’d begun to realise that his feelings for his partner may not be entirely platonic, the comments seemed designed to torment Harry with mental images that made his mouth water and his cock stiffen.

“How’s that?” Harry asked, closing the hinge on the second handcuff and clearing his throat.

Draco flexed his arms, pulling lightly at the cuffs and Harry watched as the shiny metal dug into the pale skin of Draco’s wrists. “I suppose it’s tolerable. What if I need to free myself from them in a hurry though?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Harry reassured him. “I’ve already tested them and they’ll pop open simple enough with a whispered  _ Alohomora _ . You can cast that one wandlessly, yeah?”

Draco twisted around to hit Harry with the full force of his smirk. “Don’t you think you should have confirmed that  _ before _ locking me up, Potter?” Fortunately, Draco did not torture him for long and he huffed out a small amused laugh. “Relax, Harry, I can do that one wandlessly.”

Harry felt even more flustered at Draco’s uncommon use of his first name. His last name was no longer weighed down with the vitriol that it used to be when it came out of Draco’s lips; now, it floated along on the air with a flirty teasing tone. But even though Harry almost exclusively used Draco’s first name now, Draco still persisted in using Harry’s surname most of the time.

Draco laughed again, making Harry wonder if Draco knew exactly what his use of Harry’s first name did to him. Sometimes being close with a Slytherin was exhausting—exciting, but exhausting.

Harry ignored those piercing mercurial eyes that felt like they could see straight through his skin and down to his rapidly beating heart. He pulled the parchment he’d brought with him out of the inside pocket of his jacket and studied it for a moment, recommitting the layout of the police station to his memory. 

“The evidence storage is down in the basement. We just need to go straight past reception and take the first left and then the stairs down to the basement are at the end of that hallway.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Draco said, sounding vaguely bored. “Can we get going then? Being tied up like this is not nearly as fun with clothes on.”

Harry gulped and tucked the map of the office layout back into his coat, desperately trying not to let his imagination run away with Draco’s incendiary words. “I’ll keep my wand handy just in case and will cast a quick  _ Confundo _ if anyone objects to us being there. Just don’t make a scene and draw attention to us and we should be fine.”

“I’m hardly the one that needs a reminder of that. You make sure to watch where you’re going and not trip over your own feet or walk into any poles,” Draco mocked him. He had a point: Harry did have a bit of an established pattern of embarrassing gaffes while trying to do something as simple as walking down the street. Of course, they only seemed to happen when he was with Draco and, just perhaps, might be caused by the fact that Harry had a tendency of losing track of his surroundings when he was gazing at his striking blond partner.

“Let’s get going,” Harry said, wrapping his hand around Draco’s upper arm and gently leading him forward.

They made their way up the steps and into the police station. The place was abuzz with activity, which definitely worked in their favour as no one seemed to bat an eye at them, everyone too busy and preoccupied with their own day to take notice of Harry and the fact that he didn’t actually work here. For a police station, they had surprisingly lax security.

Harry remained alert and focused regardless, ready to pull out his wand at the first sign of trouble. They made it to the stairwell without anyone stopping them and they stopped so that Draco could free himself from the cuffs. It wouldn’t really make sense for a prisoner to be down in the lower levels, so they figured their best bet was to ditch the appearance that he was under arrest.

“What’s the plan when we get down there?” Draco whispered after casting a suspicious look up the stairwell. There was a faint murmur of voices from the bullpen not far away, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the stairwell with them.

“We weren’t able to find out exactly where the painting is being stored, so we’re going to have to do some searching for it. From what I understand, there is going to be one officer that is in charge of monitoring the evidence.” As he spoke, he pulled out the beaded evening bag that Hermione had loaned to him for this and pulled the invisibility cloak out of it.

“Fetching handbag, though it’s a bit out of fashion,” Draco joked. Harry just rolled his eyes; it wasn’t the first time Harry had borrowed the handy piece of magic from his friend and Draco made some variation of the same joke every time. One of these days he should ask Hermione to help him set up an extension charm on something a little less conspicuous for him to be carrying … like a bum bag. Though, he doubted that would give Draco  _ less _ material to tease him with.

Ignoring Draco, Harry reached into the bag and felt around until he found the bottle that he was looking for, a small metal hip flask with just enough Polyjuice Potion to last for about twenty minutes, which would have to be enough time for them to find the painting and get out of there. He tucked the flask into his breast pocket before handing over the invisibility cloak to Draco.

“There’s bound to be a video camera down there. You take it out with a spell from under the cloak and I’ll take care of the officer,” Harry instructed. The last thing he saw before Draco disappeared under the cloak was his nod. “You’ll have to be fast because the Polyjuice won’t last long.”

“Don’t worry, Potter. In case you’ve forgotten, I have a lot of experience with Dark Objects. I know what to look for,” Draco’s disembodied voice promised. Harry nodded and began jogging down the stairs. Although he couldn’t see him, Harry could hear the rhythmic tapping of Draco’s shoes just over his shoulder as they descended down to the lower floor.

Harry reached out and put his hand on the doorknob, but then paused. “Are you ready?”

An exasperated cluck of the tongue followed. “Potter, don’t be such a drama queen. It’s not like we’re breaking into Buckingham Palace to knick the Queen’s knickers.”

Harry smothered a smile and turned the knob, pulling the door open and pausing a moment to allow Draco to slip into the hallway in front of him. Harry strode purposefully down the hallway, trying to project the confident air of someone that belonged there. He relaxed a little when he heard the faint whisper of a spell being cast behind him and he knew that the security cameras had been dealt with.

As he stepped up to the small window in the wall, the officer in charge of the evidence room looked up and scrutinised him, his brows drawing together in confusion as he tried to place Harry’s face. Acting fast, Harry pulled his wand and put the officer into a Bewitched Sleep, reaching through the narrow window just in time to grab the officer’s shirt and hold him aloft. To his left, Draco’s head appeared only to disappear through the door leading into the evidence storage area after unlocking the door with a whispered word.

A few seconds later, Draco’s pale hands slipped under the officer’s arms and Harry let go of him, letting Draco guide the man’s body safely to the floor. Harry had just slipped through the door after Draco when he heard the man groan and mutter, “This guy has spent too long locked down here and not enough time on those walkmill things.”

“Treadmill, Draco,” Harry corrected automatically as he squatted down and plucked one of the somnolent guard’s mousy brown hairs from his head. “Let’s get him tucked away quickly just in case someone comes down.”

Working together, they shifted the hefty man’s body to the side so that he wouldn’t inadvertently be spotted by anyone that happened to come down to the evidence room. Once that was done, Harry pulled out the flask and unscrewed it, dropping the short hair in. The flask heated up as the potion reacted, a surprisingly pleasant aroma of baking apple crumble rising out of the flask. Harry wasn’t fooled though: Polyjuice potion, regardless of how pleasant of an aroma it might have, always tasted like eggs that had been left to rot inside the carcass of a Porlock.

“Remember, we only have twenty minutes,” Harry warned again, putting off—if only for a few seconds—the foul potion he needed to consume.

“Bottom’s up, Potter,” Draco grinned as he lifted the hood of the cloak and disappeared from sight. Harry thought he could hear faint laughter as he tipped his head back and drank down the foul contents of the flask, but he couldn’t be sure because he was retching so loudly. Bending over, he tried to steady his breathing as he felt the potion take hold, his bones shrinking and his trousers growing unbearably tight as a generous belly ballooned out of him. Scrambling for his wand, he made some hasty alterations to the uniform he was wearing and the relief was immediate as the much more generous waistline of the trousers gave him room to breathe again.

“Are you alright?” Draco asked from somewhere to Harry’s right.

“Why are you wasting time with me when you could be looking for the portrait?” Harry managed to grit out through clenched teeth as the final stages of the transformation completed.

“Time with you is never wasted, Potter,” Draco teased, his voice dropping in volume as he seemingly walked away from Harry, beginning the search for the portrait.

The DMLE had become alerted to a potential Dark Object after an article appeared in one of the nation’s tabloid newspapers. Although many of the Muggles took the rags that broadcasted outlandish headlines to be frivolous and inaccurate, they were closely monitored by the Ministry. Although the Ministry worked hard to protect the Statute of Secrecy, it wasn’t unheard of that occasional breaches would occur. The magical happenings seemed too unreal to believe for most Muggles, so the stories inevitably ended up in the tawdriest of tabloids.

A few days ago, a new story about a “haunted portrait” had graced the front page. An anonymous firefighter had been interviewed claiming that after they had extinguished a huge blaze in east London; the only thing that had been left undamaged was a portrait. The frame surrounding it had burned away, but the canvas was found leaning against the wall, having seemingly slipped down the wall from where it had been hanging. Under the headline, the paper had printed a haunting picture of the painting, presumably taken by one of the firefighters; a teenage girl with silky-looking auburn hair was standing in profile to the viewer, her head turned to the side so she could gaze at the viewer from under lowered eyelashes that gave the impression they would begin fluttering coquettishly at any moment.

The portrait was obviously motionless as the picture appeared in a Muggle paper and not a wizarding one, and there was nothing to suggest Magical involvement, but it was suspicious enough that it warranted investigation. After they’d posed as journalists and probed the firefighters for more information, they had discovered that the painting had been taken in as evidence as the police were currently investigating the fire as potential arson.

Rather than attempting to go through the red tape of officially requisitioning permission to examine the evidence—a process which could take weeks since the current Prime Minister was particularly hostile towards the Ministry of Magic and took offence whenever the DMLE tried to “intrude” on Muggle affairs—Harry and Draco had decided to take a more direct approach.

The elevator dinged and Harry’s head shot up, his breath held. A dark-haired officer stepped out of the elevator and nodded at Harry, who nodded back, before turning and walking in the opposite direction down the hallway. Harry breathed out a sigh of relief and looked down at the watch on his wrist—the dented, but well-loved, watch that Molly Weasley gifted him on his 17th birthday which used to belong to her brother, Fabian. Best he could figure, they only had about ten more minutes before they had to get out of there.

“Any luck?” Harry asked in a hushed voice.

“There’s definitely something in here,” Draco answered, sounding distracted. Harry felt the staticky sensation of Draco’s magic as Draco crossed behind Harry’s back, moving from one row of shelved boxes to the next.

“We’re running out of time,” Harry warned him, glancing again at his watch. They were down to nine minutes left.

“Then stop distracting me and let me do this,” Draco snapped back, his words becoming quieter as he made his way down the aisle.

The elevator dinged again and Harry stood to attention once more. Unfortunately, they weren’t as lucky this time and the blonde policewoman made her way down the hallway to the window that Harry was standing at.

“Wotcha, Harry!” the woman greeted him and Harry jolted at the use of his name. His heart burst into a staccato rhythm as he struggled to keep the fear off his face. The woman didn’t seem aggressive or suspicious though, so Harry assumed that the officer whose visage he was currently borrowing must share the same first name as himself.

“Hey,” Harry offered tentatively. She came to an abrupt halt a few steps short of the window and Harry thought for sure something had given him away and they were going to have to make a quick escape.

“Damn. I forgot the requisition form,” the woman said. “I don’t suppose you could just let me take a look at the painting real quick in that arson investigation? Case number is”—she pulled out a small black notebook from the front pocket of her shirt and flipped it open—”279464-269. I just need to check one thing. We have someone claiming that they owned the same painting a few years ago when their house was also destroyed in a fire.”

“Sorry,” Harry said, shrugging his shoulders as if he really wished he could help her out, but his hands are tied.

She sighed and said, “Yeah, I understand. I’ll just run back up to my desk and grab it. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Sounds good,” Harry added, smiling nervously at the woman. It seemed that their time was almost up. He waited several excruciating seconds as the woman stood waiting for the elevator before she stepped inside and he spun around, hissing, “Draco! We need to leave. Now!”

“ _ Accio _ evidence box 279464-269,” Draco said. There was a rustling sound from one of the aisles near the far end of the room and then a box rounded the corner and came hurling towards them. The box came to an abrupt halt as Draco’s arms emerged from under the cloak and he caught the box.

“Let’s make a replica and get out of here,” Harry said, casting a nervous look down the hall, expecting the elevator to ding any minute now.

“I’ll handle the painting, you take care of him,” Draco said, nodding his head in the direction of the prone officer behind them.

As Harry lifted the unconscious guard and propped him up on the chair nearby, Draco pulled the rolled-up painting out of the box and unfurled it, studying it for a few moments before nodding, satisfied. Looking around the small area, Draco grabbed a paperback that was sitting on a table nearby and set about transfiguring it into a passable replica of the painting.

“Ready?” Harry asked, his wand held aloft and ready to take the other Harry out of his Bewitched Sleep. Draco replaced the replica in the box and set it down at the officer’s feet.

“Ready,” Draco confirmed. Harry looked uncertainly down at the box, thinking they should return it back to the shelf where it came from. “No time, Potter. We have to get out of here before that Polyjuice wears off.”

Harry nodded, knowing Draco was right. Harry slipped his arm through Draco’s and lifted the sleep spell just before Draco Apparated them out of there, purloined painting firmly grasped in one hand.

They emerged in the middle of the sitting room of Harry’s flat. “What are we doing here? We need to get that back to the Ministry,” Harry protested, pointing at the portrait in Draco’s hand as Draco stared back at him patiently.

h

“And we will,” Draco assured. “But as Apparition directly into the Ministry is prohibited, I thought it would be wise to make a pit stop here until—” he was interrupted by a loud moan that escaped from Harry as he bent over in pain “—that is over.”

For the next few minutes as Harry struggled through the transformation back to his own body, Draco bent over and studied the painting which he had unrolled on Harry’s dining table. “Nice pants. I didn’t realise they even made pants with Golden Snitches on them for grown men,” he said casually as he continued to study the painting.

Harry looked down to see that the generous adjustments he had made to his clothing were now much too generous and his trousers were puddled around his ankles. He grabbed at them and pulled them back up before struggling to pull out his wand and make the necessary adjustments.

It was a small blessing that his stomach was still performing backflips and he was far too nauseous to even consider being embarrassed. “Find anything yet?” he asked, fighting back nausea as his mouth flooded with saliva.

“Sit down and stick your head between your knees. It will help,” Draco said as he gave Harry a pitying look. Harry didn’t bother arguing with his partner, partly because he knew it was a losing battle, but also because he really did feel green around the gills. Harry settled heavily into one of the dining chairs and focused on the pattern of the carpet while he waited for his stomach to settle down.

“Feel this,” Draco instructed, wrapping his fingers around Harry’s wrist and lifting his hand to hold it hovering over the painting. “Do you feel that?”

Harry didn’t feel anything. “What should I be feeling?” Harry croaked out.

“It doesn’t appear to be a magical painting,” Draco explained, still holding onto Harry’s wrist. Harry sat up, his nausea abating, but still Draco didn’t let go of his hand. “The figure hasn’t moved the entire time I’ve been studying it, but the painting seems to be emitting heat.”

Now that he knew what to look for, Harry refocused on his hand and he thought he could feel it. Harry was disappointed when Draco let go of his hand and stepped back, giving Harry space, but he brushed it aside and leaned forward to inspect the painting. The painting stared back at him with that flirtatious look, just like it had in the picture printed in the tabloid. It looked less malicious when it wasn’t surrounded by the charred remnants of a fire. The painting did seem remarkably undamaged though; Harry would never guess that it had been in the middle of a blaze.

“So if it isn’t a magical painting, what is it?” he asked as he compared the air above the painting at different heights. There was definitely a faint glow of warmth coming off the painting.

“I don’t think it’s a magical painting, but I don’t think it’s entirely Muggle either,” Draco said as he looked down at the painting. “I think whoever painted this may have used magical ingredients in the paint itself.”

Harry looked up at his partner. “Magical ingredients? Like what?”

Draco shrugged. “I won’t know for sure until we get someone from Accidents and Catastrophes to take a look at it, but my guess would be maybe ashwinder eggs. They’re incredibly hot if not frozen properly and can actually cause fires.”

Harry pulled his hand back and eyed the painting with renewed suspicion. “If it’s releasing heat now, what do you think that means?”

“It means that we should probably not dilly-dally and should get it into the Ministry where it can be properly contained,” Draco said.

Before Draco could move, Harry rolled up the painting again and tucked it under his arm. An inherent protective instinct made him want to keep this thing as far away from Draco as possible.

“There’s going to be questions about where we got this thing, you know,” Draco warned as he grabbed hold of Harry’s arm and prepared to Apparate them to the vicinity of the Ministry.

“A few questions are a lot better than someone else getting hurt or killed by this thing. Who knows how many fires it’s caused?” Harry said, absolutely convinced that whatever slap in the wrist he got would be worth it.

“Once a Gryffindor, always a Gryffindor,” Draco said, amusedly. “Just so you know, if anyone asks, I’m going to say the whole thing was your idea.”

Harry grinned. He knew his partner was all bluster and they would have each other’s back. They always did.


End file.
